The Best Supporting Actress feels a little volatile this year: the only sure thing seems to be Laura Dern for Marriage Story, with all the other spots with no rock solid contenders besides Margot Robbie for Bombshell (maybe!). But why is Laura Dern such a solid contender? Well: first, Marriage Story is a Best Picture contender and it has the giant Netflix backing its award campaign... and since Best Supporting Actress (and Best Supporting Actor) are closely related with Best Picture, things sound good for her; second, she has the rave reviews, the Golden Globe win and the critics prizes, for a truly supporting review (not my favorite performance from her, but predicting it's not only about "me"); third and last, she's a member of the Board of Governors in the Actors Branch, which means she's part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (really, she's a Governor!). Plus, she's living a sweet moment in her career and there's a lot of goodwill toward giving her an Oscar win because of her career - in other words, she's Hollywood royalty! Then, I would say we have Margot Robbie for her performance as an ambitious woman caught in the sexual harassment scandal that shaked Fox (she's a victim herself) in Bombshell: critics highlighted her performance and the movie has a nice couple of "Oscar clips" which juicy scenes that show her acting range. People and critics don't seem to love the movie itself, but there's no denying about the high caliber of the acting! Robbie's star has been on the rise since 2016's Suicide Squad and 2017's I, Tonya and the Academy has already showed her some love, which it's likely to happen a second time. Plus, she also stars in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, playing Sharon Tate in a "nothing role", yet she catches the audiences eye with her luminous charisma - and considering she has much more to do in Bombshell, I think voters will pick her for that one (the performance that earned her all the awards nods she needed to be considered a frontrunner in this race). In number 3, Scarlett Johansson for Jojo Rabbit - not only she's having a great year with Avengers: Endgame becoming the highest-grossing movie in history and receiving the best reviews of her career for her performance in Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story (a performance that earned her a frontrunner status in Best Actress race alongside Zellweger for Judy), but she also excels in Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit. In this one, she plays the mother of a young Nazi fanatic and she's the most luminous she has ever been - and SAG, Critics' Choice, BAFTA and some critics associations took notice and recognized her work. I believe an Oscar nomination is next and she will become a double Oscar nominee - and this way they will apologize for snubing her so many times before. Then, here comes Florence Pugh for her performance as Amy in Greta Gerwig's Little Women - the recent controversies of having female directors (and their projects) absent from awards shorlists will benefit Little Women coming Oscar time for sure. The Academy will want to avoid this kind of backlash and considering Little Women has become a critical darling and a box-office success, Critics call her the movie's standout and she's having a great year with also Midsonmar and Fighting With My Family contributing for her golden 2019. I believe Pugh will make the final Best Supporting Actress nominees shortlist, just like she did with BAFTA Awards and Critics' Choice Awards. The final spot... Well, I think it might be wishful thinking, but everyone who watches The Farewell names Zhao Shuzhen as the movie's heart and one of the year's best performances in film. If she manages to be nominated for her performance as the sweet Nai Nai, she would be a true passion pick: no Golden Globe nom, no BAFTA nom and no SAG nom. Only critics seem to have noticed her so far, but A24 has been trying to give her more visibility (hopefully, Awkwafina's Golden Globe win for The Farewell will also give Zhao some more visibility).
Against all the odds, I truly Jennifer Lopez will be snubed for her performance in Hustlers coming Oscar nominations morning. It's not because she had a lot of flops in the last decade, because she had the great Selena and Out of Sight back in the late 90's. It's not because she isn't able to deliver a performance, because she's dynamite in Hustler. It's not because she's an American Latina, because the AMPAS needs to nominate people of color to avoid controversies. It's just because she's Jennifer Lopez and the conservative members of the Academy don't take her seriously as an actress - she's just a celebrity who stars in bad movies. I know she got a Golden Globe nod and a SAG nod plus a couple of critics wins, but I see Academy members going for more "prestige" contenders and going for Hustlers in Best Adapted Screenplay rather than here. Then, I think it comes Kathy Bates for Richard Jewell - she got a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress, she won the National Board of Review for Best Supporting Actress and I would dare to say she would be nominated for a SAG Award if she wasn't submitted in Leading Actress by mistake. It's a limited role as the suffering mother of Richard Jewell, the man wrongly accused of placing a bomb in Centennial Park so he could find it and be a hero, but she makes the most of it and she's heart-breaking! It's the role of the suffering/supportive mother most Oscar voters love, but the movie underperformed at the box-office and Bates underperformed with awards... Still, she has a chance! Cho Yeo-jeong delivers one of the showiest performances from Parasite's ensemble and she's memorable as the neurotic Mrs. Park. The movie's unstoppable Oscar buzz sure helps her getting in the conversation, but all the women in Parasite are excellent and she can easily miss a nod because of vote splitting (or because it's hard to remember Asian names). Number #9, Ana de Armas for Knives Out! Well, I know she's an obvious lead as the nurse who's a suspected murderer, but Lionsgate was able to fraud her in Best Supporting Actress for the Online Film Critics Society Award...! The FYC ads include de Armas in the Best Actress category, but I wouldn't be surprised if Oscar voters really love the movie and decide to include her in this category: she's the hit girl of the moment, she got a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture or Musical and she was able to steal the show from such an all-star ensemble cast. Interesting, right? The last spot: Annette Bening for The Report. I thought she was "dead" awards-speaking, but then she got that Golden Globe nomination and a big couple of critics prizes nods... and then she misses SAG and I put Kidman in her place... and then Trump starts a war with Iran and I have a hunch some Academy members might go for a movie that exposes the horrors of war by giving her a nod. She wouldn't win, but an Oscar nom is an Oscar nom!
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